Since then this mysterious group has sporadically showed up normally with events that either involve solving a series of puzzles, or dead drops spread world wide and even teaching us encryption techniques. While they have showed to be interested only in discovering the truth, even though their members seem to support both factions individually, a series of events starting in August 2013 began to hint at activity outside of the puzzle/dead drop events.

P. A. Chapeau went offgrid October 1, 2013, halting posts to his investigation board. On the same day, the VI posted this on their g+ feed indicating potential increased involvement in the developing storyline.

Access Dives

Due to the sheer amount of these puzzles each dive has it's own page. These so far have begun with 2 puzzles that the solution leads to the next puzzle and normally involves a metapuzzle at the end of the 2 chains.

Dead Drops

International Dead Drop Day

We have sent word to PAC about a series of dead drops that span the globe. Over 20 drops total to be found, and 100 scanner activation codes.

If you successfully recover a dead drop, feel free to share your proof with us. Post pics of the moment of discovery to Google+ (#deaddropday) and we will give you an extra scanner activation code to share - just be sure that any recovered intel does not fall into the wrong hands.

More posts to come…

#deaddropday #Ingress

During the day they posted several photos of locations where agents could collect an unseen storyboard (a different one in each location that contained invite codes). You can see those storyboards in here.
They also posted at the end a video where we can see the different cities used, accompanied by the the text :

International Dead Drop Day was a resounding success. Agents across the globe in 22 cities responded rapidly, cooperating to recover many of the cached assets and to share them with fellow agents.

We fight the unseen battle. Over the coming months, we hope to share with you the tools to combat the NIA. We will not back down. Are you prepared?

Louisville

We have received intel that the Portal “Gaslight Square Gazebo” is inaccessible and that the drop there has been removed. Please share a private post with us with photo evidence to obtain the next drop's location instead of going to this Portal.

Interitus 02

Encryption lessons

Steganography

One surprisingly effective technique used by the NIA is to hide messages in images using very low contrast. Sometimes these are visible to the naked eye, sometimes not. You can see the message for yourself by increasing the contrast and moving the brightness up or down. Use your favourite image manipulation program to do this. Try it out on the image below…

This is fairly easy to solve and it was meant as a lesson from Verum Inveniri so the solution will not be displayed here. Just use the teaching they give you. You can still find the rewards it gives in the passcode list

Extra Info

A previous version contained a different passcode 4qf3enlighteny5w2r

Transposition (part 1)

A transposition cipher is a cipher that works by simply shuffling the letters of the message around.

If you do this at random, you end up with an anagram.

However, if you want to reliably decode messages, you need to shuffle the letters in an ordered fashion. A simple way to do this is to write out your message in rows then read it out in columns. One favourite of the NIA is a more complex method called railfence. Write out the message in a zig-zag pattern, then read it out in rows. These ciphers are very easy to solve with pen and paper.

On the image you can see 8tsin9y3rnpstoupyeaoi2
Using a railfence of 3 we get 8ye3transpositionu2p9y
At the time something was wrong with the code and it was giving an error when validating, but the rewards were given.
Later Verum Inveniri added this comment

Using a caeser shift of 1 we get
The asset redemption code works, but it’s sidechained in to avoid NIA detection. They haven’t caught on yet, but this has the side-effect that the scanner does not properly report the asset acquisition. The longer this stays off their radar, the deeper we can dive.﻿
The code now shows as invalid

We might do more detailed posts about some of these methods in the future, but the next post will be a look at cryptanalysis.

When you solve the example, don’t give the answer to anyone else! Share this post with your friends instead. If you need help with cryptography, come to #veruminveniri on irchighway.net to talk.
http://irc.lc/irchighway/veruminveniri/VI@@@

This is fairly easy to solve and it was meant as a lesson from Verum Inveniri so the solution will not be displayed here. Just use the teaching they give you. You can still find the rewards it gives in the passcode list

Extra Info

There are several puzzles in there but they seem to solve to the same code. This seemed to be part of Verum Inveniri's April Fools joke

Transposition (part 3)

How can you get a handle on a transposition cipher? The first thing to remember, is all the characters are still there. We have an anagram! And you can use an anagram solver to find possible words hidden in the ciphertext.

Once you have a word that you think is in there somewhere, you can look at the positions of the letters and hopefully spot the pattern that allows you to shuffle all the characters back to their correct positions.

The NIA often break one of the critical rules in cryptography, and leave clues about the key right next to the puzzle. This can make your task much easier, for example, if you know that 4 is the clue, then you might find that the cipher is railfence with 4 rails.

When you solve the example, don’t give the answer to anyone else! Share this post with your friends instead. If you need help with cryptography, come to #veruminveniri on irchighway.net to talk.
http://irc.lc/irchighway/veruminveniri/VI@@@

This is fairly easy to solve and it was meant as a lesson from Verum Inveniri so the solution will not be displayed here. Just use the teaching they give you. You can still find the rewards it gives in the passcode list

This is fairly easy to solve and it was meant as a lesson from Verum Inveniri so the solution will not be displayed here. Just use the teaching they give you. You can still find the rewards it gives in the passcode list

IRC

IRC dump (chat with Theresa Chic)

In addition to communication via deaddrops and their g+ account, the VI use an IRC channel. They have posted screencaps of a number of IRC chat sessions. While most of the posts contain puzzles to be decoded, there is also a developing storyline running through the chat screens (see each chat below for decoding and storyline)

On the 10th of May Theresa Chic (an anagram for Cheshire Cat) had a conversation with Verum Inveniri on their channel.

Hidden Info

The Original string was in the Verum Inveniri IRC channel. It was ODUgPH5DTHFkPDBKUDgjQkpEMXFAPDZPNUZDZkRHMGVkUSQwZW1qIn4+﻿
Convert base 64 to ascii and then take the ascii string to convert from base 85. Convert the binary to numbers and the kw is an anagram for statue. ﻿

2ph5statuep6p7v.

!help (u.jpg)

On the 30th of July VI posted an image of a terminal with some info on it and a link to their IRC channel

Hidden Info

By doing !help in the channel you would get this reply U{ ;5$A214501T9)5D534%E25$A214525$A21458 }

!help (x10c100.jpg)

On the 3r of August VI posted an image of a terminal with some info on it and a link to their IRC channel

Storyline

Mention of Field Station on radio C-100. This field station is mentioned in later posts bu the VI.

Hidden Info

By doing !help in the channel you would get this reply GAQQBBcWFgQQBBUEFxYEGAQQBAYEFxY=

!help (g.jpg)

On the 7th of August VI posted an image of a terminal with some info on it and a link to their IRC channel

Storyline

Introduced to the Operator and Technician. In a post made by the VI on Oct. 1, 2013
(https://plus.google.com/u/0/109846653838501599116/posts/jBayN7nUWHA), the VI reveal three
names: Titan ( ), Kryptos (Technician) and Voynich (Operator)

There is a mention of receiving a message from the field station on radio C-100 and after that line the
Operator mentions they hope this one is not corrupted

Hidden Info

By doing !help in the channel you would get this reply

(the spaces were not in the original, they are here to avoid a wiki style)
R0lGODlhRQAFAIAAAAAAAP/ / / yH5BAAAAAAALAAAAABFAAUAAAI9DBCWe6i8zHnMWTllatZtj3jPVX3QGW7nKo5VCKrylWozRn45diuwjppNfjRbw8WjHTORJs4JjUpNUKajAAA7

Interitus

June 2014 Nemesis Film Dead Drop

A dead drop containing a roll of film was found by an agent. When developed it contained images of a document. See here for information on the images. Nemesis posted about the dead drop using the VI account actually created the dead drop. See also this post